Authoress's notes:
This story takes place just before the events of
The Force Awakens
.
I had the idea for this right after watching the movie, but only just now got around to writing it.
Enjoy! - Handcuffgirl
Scavenger Rey
Rey dropped through the hole, landing in a crouch on the deck below, then rising. The ship was at about a thirty degree angle, so she had to lean hard to her left to keep her balance. She was exploring one of the crashed Star Destroyers on Jakku, looking for junk to sell. This level was definitely darker than the ones above. Less than a quarter of the glowpanels down here were still working—and most of those only a little. Her eyes had adjusted to the dimness on the levels above, but this one was too dark.
Squinting in the dark, she turned on the glowtorch attached to her goggles on. She turned and shone it behind her, then forward, to see which way looked more promising. After a moment, she headed forward, almost the way she had been facing when she had landed. The deck was angled down that way a bit too. It was easiest to walk along the edge of the deck, where it met the bulkhead.
By the time she'd made it a half-dozen meters or so, she realized she was on the detention level. She was pretty sure she had gotten to this deck on the last Destroyer she'd been in, but it had been almost completely buried in sand. This one was pretty clean, and at least this section didn't appear to be too damaged, considering the ship had been blasted out of space and crash-landed here a couple of decades ago. This ship was about sixty klicks further out from where she usually explored. She had hoped it hadn't been scavenged much. So far, she was doing pretty good. She already had most of a load, and that was just in a couple of hours. It wasn't the best she'd ever done, but it wasn't far off.
All of the hatches Rey saw were virtually identical, other than the numbers on them. She figured they were cells. None of them would open, or had viewports though. She didn't try too hard to open any of them, because she didn't think the Empire would have left anything valuable in a cell.
After about another forty meters or so, she came to a different hatch, marked
SUPPLY
. That sounded promising. It didn't look nearly as formidable as the cell doors either. Rey set down her pack, pulled out a couple of her tools, and went to work on the hatch. She had it opened in a couple of minutes. She replaced her tools, picked up her pack, and stepped inside, her glowtorch shining the way.
Rey shone her glowtorch around the almost completely dark room. There were racks of... restraints, and other stuff. She moved her light back around towards the corridor, and found a control panel just to the right of the door. She stepped over and turned the room's glowpanels on.
They blinked, then there was a high-pitched whine that lasted several seconds. Finally one of the glowpanels came on, significantly brighter than the ones in the corridor. Rey was used to this on these crashed ships. Glowpanels that had been off when the crew had abandoned ship usually wouldn't power back up, but when they did, they'd be pretty bright. The ones that had been left on though, like in the corridor, would not work at all most of the time, and when they did, they'd be almost completely dim.
Now Rey could get a better look at what she'd found. There were binders, cuffs, stun-batons, helmets, plastoid shields, pieces of armor, what looked like prisoner jumpsuits. A bunch of the stuff was strewn all over the floor too.
Most of the binders were white and black plasteel. Some were wrist-sized, with the cuffs attached directly to each other. Others looked a bit bigger, with a plasteel cable of some sort connecting the cuffs. There were also a handful that looked maybe twice the size of the larger ones, and a few were even bigger.
Rey leaned down and picked up one of the larger ones. It was probably fifty centimeters across, and six or seven tall, and a bit lighter than she'd expected. After examining it a few moments, she realized it was a collar, sized for a Wookiee or an Ugnaught or something. Almost without conscious thought, she put it down, and grabbed one a bit smaller. This one seemed to be about right. It had an inner layer of black, with wide segments of white on the outside. After looking it over for a few seconds, she tried to pull it open. It didn't budge. She took a deep breath, and tried again. Still nothing.
Frowning, Rey looked around for a remote or something to open it. There were two hanging on a wall, with empty spots for a few dozen more. She noticed some mixed in with the restraints and stuff on the floor as well. She grabbed one of the ones off the wall, held it near the collar, and pressed the largest button.
Nothing happened. She pressed the button again, holding it down for a couple of seconds.
This time the remote beeped, and some tiny red lights on the collar that she hadn't even noticed came on. She tugged on the collar again, and it opened.
Rey held her breath in anticipation as she lifted it to her throat. She slid it around her neck so it closed in front, and pushed the ends together with a